When Rius Billing started at Alliance Spacesystems in 1998, the company had two rooms and less than 20 employees.

Twenty years later, the company now known as MDA U.S. Systems, employs four times as many people in Pasadena and uses three buildings in a Lincoln Avenue industrial park.

MDA U.S. Systems is part of a subtle network of companies linked to the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They operate throughout the city in quiet, sometimes unmarked business parks, with specialties in tough-to-build components necessary for NASA’s biggest missions.

The space systems company built the robotic arms on all of the rovers sent to Mars, but is now branching out to develop technologies that could someday build, and repair satellites in orbit around Earth.

“It’s a tremendous time for us, the growth is not stopping,” said Billing, the chief engineer.

The company has been tied to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since the beginning. The first 15 employees all came from the nearby NASA facility in La Canada Flintridge. The engineers jokingly referred to Alliance as “JPL South” for years.

Their early contracts included work on Mars landers. But everything changed once they won a major contract to build the arms for NASA’s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. The arms carried four scientific instruments for analyzing and imaging soil and rocks.

As a result, the company exploded, hiring dozens of employees and expanding into surrounding buildings. They scraped together upgrades however they could, including dismantling a clean room left abandoned in another building that the owner gave away for free just to see it gone, Billing said.

At their peak, they had their annual Christmas party at Disneyland, with the company footing the bill for employees’ hotel rooms and tickets.

But like most startups, staffing fluctuated dramatically over the years, due to the company’s dependency on big contracts with JPL.

“We’ve grown, and shrunk, and had lean times, and times of plenty,” said Lucy Condakchian, general manager.

They would go on to work on the Curiosity rover too. You can thank them for the iconic Curiosity selfie, as they designed the robot’s arm and worked on the camera too.

But, now, MDA U.S. Systems has embarked toward new frontiers. Billing estimates JPL is about 10 percent of their work now, down from more than 80 percent in the past.

Still, the company will have parts on the Mars 2020 rover, Curiosity’s successor, and the InSight lander.

Canadian aerospace corporation, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, or MDA, acquired the company in 2007. MDA then picked up Space Systems Loral in Palo Alto in 2012, and restructured the space division so the two companies would work more closely together.

Along with SSL, the Pasadena facility is now working on cutting edge technologies that could shape the future of the private and public satellite industries.

Restore-L is a NASA-funded tech demonstration that would send a service spacecraft into low-Earth orbit to refuel NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite.

“Restore-L effectively breaks the paradigm of one-and-done spacecraft,” Frank Cepollina, the leader of five crewed servicing missions to the Hubble Telescope, said in a statement released by NASA last year. “It introduces new ways to robotically manage, upgrade and prolong the lifespans of our costly orbiting national assets. By doing so, Restore-L opens up expanded options for more resilient, efficient and cost-effective operations in space.”

Similarly, a DARPA-funded project that SSL and MDA U.S. are working on called, RSGS, or Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites, is designed around repairing, refueling and upgrading satellites.

If successful, the technologies could eventually create robotic mechanics for the more than 1,000 satellites in orbit around our planet. The commercial application could extend satellite lifespans and allow old components to be swapped out.

In Pasadena, the robotic arms become crucial, as the robots will have to execute delicate work in zero gravity.

“They have a tool box to fix a solar array, or a reflector that didn’t deploy correctly,” Billing said.

Another project with NASA, Dragonfly, is exploring ways for robotic systems to self-assemble satellites in space. These systems would use a 3.5 meter arm to put together disassembled parts that could be stowed more easily in the already tight confines of a rocket’s payload.

The commercialization of Earth’s orbit is the future of industry and the employees’ work is putting MDA at the forefront, Condakchian said.

“That’s the future of space,” she said.

Though it has grown significantly, and is owned now by a corporation, Condakchian said the company has kept its core values and continues to stay nimble. It hasn’t outgrown Pasadena yet either, she said.

Rene Fradet co-founded Alliance Spacesystems with fellow JPLers Scott VanderZyl and Jim Staats in 1997. He left to become JPL’s chief financial officer after MDA’s acquisition in 2007.

During the company’s 20th anniversary celebrations Friday, he toured the facilities, noting the changes as he went.

“After 20 years, to think this would still have legs,” he said with a laugh. “They’re doing better than we ever did.”

Jason Henry is a staff reporter for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and Pasadena Star-News. He covers Pasadena, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech and the City of Industry. Raised in Ohio, Jason began his career at a suburban daily near Cleveland before moving to California in 2013. He is a self-identified technophile, data nerd and a wannabe drone pilot. The 2011 graduate of Bowling Green State University likes to shock his city friends by sharing his hometown's population.

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